ABSTRACT

Aim:

Healthcare associated infections (HAI) are important health problems that can not be completely solved by countries in the world or by health institutions. Each year millions of people are affected by HAI and HAI’s are de-fined as most frequent side effects seen in health service provision around the world. Healthcare associated infections increase the length of stay, cause long term workforce loss, increase antimicrobial resistant microorganisms, cause extra cost in health system and important costs for the patient and the family, even death. Precautions should be taken in order to recognize, prevent and control HAI. To show the cost of HAI we conduct a case-control study in a tertiary care university hospital.

Materyal & Method:

All medical costs for patients who had acquired HAI during the study period (15 months) and who had not were compared.

Results:

Cost was significantly higher in the case group than the control group (P<0.01). Significant differences have been found between the case and control groups in terms of medicine costs, medical analysis costs, blood center costs, clinical costs, consultation costs and total costs throughout the hospital. There were no significant differences in medical equipment costs, radiology costs and other costs. Death rate in control group was 6.4% while death rate in the case group was 16.5%.

Conclusion:

Health care associated infections cause excess cost and implementation of infection control programs with economical support of the reimbursement institutions may be useful in decreasing HAI related costs.